Saturday, August 28, 2004
Soup - er, natural? You know what Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup tastes like? Well no, you probably don't any more because they've just changed the recipe to make it 'healthier'. Heinz blitzed supermarkets this week to clear out supplies of the old stock and replace it with hundreds of thousands of cans of the new. Here's how a typical 400ml can of Britain's favourite comfort food measured up before and after the great switchover:
| Ingredients | Old soup | New soup |
| Tomatoes | 74% | 84% |
| Sugar | 21g | 20g |
| Fat | 14g | 12g |
| Salt | 6g | 3g |
| Price | 49p-ish | 59p-ish |
See how much healthier they've made it? Lots more tomatoes, a scrap less sugar and fat, but half the salt. Just as well, because the original soup contained an adult's entire daily recommended salt intake in one can. And the cost to the consumer of this health-repositioning - a whopping 20% price increase. Having tried a mug of the new stuff this lunchtime I can't say I noticed much of a difference, except to my pocket. It still tastes as good as it always used to, maybe a bit more tomatoey, and it still stains your shirt orange if you spill some. I'm just slightly unnerved how bad for me the original soup used to be, and that Heinz appear to be charging me a premium for taking the unhealthy stuff out.
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